Thank you for your inquiries, Catriana. I'll try to tackle them in the same order you brought them up

Catriana wrote:My understanding is that you're trying to take the current PTP 2.0 system and do something completely different settings-wise

I want to try to go with "Option 1" where the 'community' was going to patch PtP2.0. Doing something completely different settings-wise would only occur if Kern says that I can't. I'm just leaving open the possibility that something might go wrong. Do I see Kern saying that I can't use the Drowtales setting? No. But I'm not going to count on it 100%. Even in that worst case scenario, there's nothing that would legally stop me from making the exact same product and changing names or titles.

Catriana wrote:your current explanation is a bit unclear since you kind of bounce around in your initial proposal.

I'll try to break down my initial proposal in hopes it will makes things more clear

1. Brief history of the current situation2. Project goal in broad terms3. Project is unofficial4. I will be leading the project5. It will be driven and developed by the PtP community 6. Project progress will be kept transparent7. Multiple phases of development, planning being the first phase to tackle8. There will be more PEP Talks to come9. After enough PEP Talks and planning, programming will then commence10. Anyone can watch or apply11. Questions about the project

Catriana wrote:3Power has a very valid point that you're dismissing.

3Power chose one of the worst ways to express that point. He came off as extremely condescending and negatively judgmental. Even so, I still responded to his questions in a manner I believe was adequate. I can go over our conversation if you would like, but I'll refrain for now for hopes that the following may address that.

Catriana wrote:You claim that you're hoping for volunteers to jump on a project with no premise, no structure, no plot basis, nothing but the fact that you might want to use the PTP 2.0 system

I would like volunteers, yes. If they were programmers with more knowledge and skill than I, that would be fantastic. It would save me a truck load of work. However, I have stated multiple times that I can do it by myself. I can only discover if there are volunteers by asking.

As for the 'no premise, no structure, no plot' etc, PtP2.0 is the entire basis for this project. I'm going for what would have happened if Option 1 passed instead of Option 2. However, I keep open the possibility that certain aspects of PtP2.0 were not good. How much might have changed, I do not know. At the very minimum, fixes for the leveling bug. But if we were allowed to fix bugs, there would also be the possibility to add functionality, improve balance, and enhance gameplay. There's so much potential with this project that I am hesitant to simply make it a PtP2.0 with no bugs and say there's nothing else that could possibly be done beyond fixing a few bugs.

Catriana wrote:You want people to join in as a team and create it for you

Just to make sure I'm absolutely clear on this. I do not expect people to join and create a game for me. If I did, I wouldn't keep stating that I can do it all myself. I'd say that I can't do this without other people's help or that people need to come together to perform to my will.

I am really curious how I came across this way I thought I left things open for either option without leaning on one side than the other, especially not the side of "I need people, I can't do this myself."

I hope I didn't forget to respond to anything. If so, please let me know and I'll get onto it

Thank you very much for your attention

I would like to add that this project is directly related to PtP. Assuming Kern has no issues with me developing it, it would effectively be PtP2.0. I apologize if my uncertainty of the future causes things to be unclear. I will do my best to clarify things.

Peppilu wrote:Thank you for your inquiries, Catriana. I'll try to tackle them in the same order you brought them up

Catriana wrote:My understanding is that you're trying to take the current PTP 2.0 system and do something completely different settings-wise

I want to try to go with "Option 1" where the 'community' was going to patch PtP2.0. Doing something completely different settings-wise would only occur if Kern says that I can't. I'm just leaving open the possibility that something might go wrong. Do I see Kern saying that I can't use the Drowtales setting? No. But I'm not going to count on it 100%. Even in that worst case scenario, there's nothing that would legally stop me from making the exact same product and changing names or titles.

Your understanding of copyright law is... rudimentary. For the record you need to get a definitive answer in the affirmative before using any of Drowtales setting or anything else held in copyright to Kern or Drowtales Studio.

The fact that you're saying you will do it yourself if you have to is irrelevant, because you are asking for help now, and that is what I am addressing.

Thank you for clarification, but now with that, your position looks even worse. As I understand it, you're proposing a project you haven't even asked permission to do, and you're already asking for volunteers. Now you have made yourself look unreliable by not having your 'ducks in a row', so to speak. It's a bad way to start. Had you succeeded in gathering a team, you could have even been seen as manipulative if you had approached Kern about it. "Oh hey, I went behind your back and got a bunch of people together for this project despite your decision and majority vote to do it another way, so if you say 'No' you look like the bad guy" I'm sure that's not at all what you intend, but it could be seen that way.

There was already a discussion about continuing on with PtP 2.0, options were discussed concerning programming and what have you. People did get together and brainstorm, and the bottom line was that the issue was with the lack of programmer, and without one the game would continue to stagnate and lose subscribers. That's one of the reasons why the option to downgrade was voted for. People liked the current system, but had already waited long enough for upgrades that weren't coming. Given also with the fact that PtP no longer had enough funding to really support itself, going to a simpler system seemed feasible.

My advice to you? Invest in a Noble family, get people to subscribe, get money back into the game so Kern can afford to make another attempt at a PtP 2.0 system. It'd cost you the same amount of time and you won't have to worry about getting permission. Or, you can find a programmer willing to work for cheap, or lastly, you can try and become the programmer Kern needs to make PtP 2.0 functional. All of those are more effective than your current proposal.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

blackjack217 wrote:For the record you need to get a definitive answer in the affirmative before using any of Drowtales setting or anything else held in copyright to Kern or Drowtales Studio.

You are correct. However, no one is arguing against that.

Catriana wrote: your position looks even worse. As I understand it, you're proposing a project you haven't even asked permission to do, and you're already asking for volunteers.

Before this gets taken incorrectly, I am going to take things to an extreme. The following is not what I'm planning to do. This extreme is NOT something I would want to do, but I'm going to use it anyway as an intentional exaggeration. Even if Kern said, "Hey Peppilu, I forbid you to do Project Phoenix. I don't give you any permission to touch any of my IP." there is nothing he can do to enforce that unless I am using his IP. He could ban me from his website, but that doesn't stop me from producing this game. If I produce it, there's no way for him to demand a cut. Because I would not be infringing on his IP.

The only way I can infringe on Drowtales setting is to use names or titles of characters, locations, or events. I'm building code from scratch, so he can't ding me there either. No one can copyright the fantasy genre. No one can copyright a game genre.

If I make a game that has a storyline based on dark elves colonizing a forested area near a lake, there's nothing that infringes on Drowtales IP. I would have to go much further into making copies of specific instances that would clearly indicate that I'm infringing on his IP.

So let me make things clear once more to make sure people don't think "Peppilu just wants to rip Kern off!" I will NOT infringe copyright. If Kern asked me to stop what I'm doing, I WOULD STOP. Not because any legal threat, but because I respect him.

Catriana wrote:Had you succeeded in gathering a team, you could have even been seen as manipulative if you had approached Kern about it. "Oh hey, I went behind your back and got a bunch of people together for this project despite your decision and majority vote to do it another way

I do not agree with this. I stated from the very beginning that I am doing this project as transparent as possible. What that meant was that I let the entire community know what's going on as it's going on. Could people see me as manipulative? Sure. But then I'd be the stupidest manipulator in history and those people would be blind. That's the same reason I announced I'm tackling Project Phoenix in the first place. Transparency. I am not operating anything under the table. Everything is out in the open

It is unfortunate that by being open and transparent that I somehow managed to be almost the exact opposite

Catriana wrote:There was already a discussion about continuing on with PtP 2.0...

Yes, I read the discussion, but I think it's unsound to rush a decision. Especially one at this magnitude. At the time of the forum threads, there was a LOT of missing information. Kern did not include a lot of specifics. You can't tell me that everyone made a well informed decision. They had whatever information was available to them and a LOT of speculation. The vote between upgrading and downgrading was essentially "Go for unknown" VS "Go for what's familiar". There wasn't an option to try one out and then try the other if it failed. There weren't any alternatives other than the 3 options.

And the vote turnout wasn't exactly one sided. Option 1 represented 40% of the votes. So it's not like there weren't people who didn't want to go ahead with it. Almost half did. What I saw was a lot of uncertainty and even then people were still voting for the uncertain. That says a lot to me when the 'sure thing' vote barely wins.

Catriana wrote:you can try and become the programmer Kern needs to make PtP 2.0 functional.

That's what my proposal is, so this statement really confuses me Are you saying that I should solely focus on programming and not do any design work?

If you got so many ideas why not put those in practice in the current game. You seem to have a head in your shoulders. The clan might need that brain matter to solve a few problems since we got with a war starting in a month.

A survivalist should not be a pessimist, he should always be positive, happy and enjoying life more than anyone else because he understands that each minute of peace we have is precious and unique, and he never takes it for granted.

3Power chose one of the worst ways to express that point. He came off as extremely condescending and negatively judgmental. Even so, I still responded to his questions in a manner I believe was adequate. I can go over our conversation if you would like, but I'll refrain for now for hopes that the following may address that.

Ignoring valid observations due to how they are stated doesn't speak well of your maturity.

Anyway, the point we're trying to get across here is that nobody is interested in your ideas for a project until you've got something to back it up with. Regardless of whether you're just stating your intentions or recruiting. If you post plans and don't deliver, it's vaporware. If you ask for help it's wasted time on top of that. Give us a reason to see your ideas as more than just words, and maybe we'll take them seriously.

Trey'la in Path to Power.We gotta go, We've got nothing to lose, now time has come for us to get out.We gotta go, If we're going down, well let's go down in flames!

Peppilu wrote:That's what my proposal is, so this statement really confuses me Are you saying that I should solely focus on programming and not do any design work?

As far as i know Kern has someone already for design, but the programming they got from the people they paid for was shit. For example, most players couldn´t level up with doing actions on the map. The skills got levels but the job one always resetted to lvl 1 after doing some work. After a few weeks alot of people stopped making map action due this bug. Though i remember someone, was it Hec(?), saying that this had to be some fault in the programming, something something technical blabla about some computer blabla. I didn´t got it to be honest.

If you don´t wanna talk already to kern, how about contacting Thalar first? She´s the GM of this game now and if she hears of a player whos a programmer and offers to make PtP 2.0 work which will probably take some time duno how long, then she can give you an answer after asking Kern herself. That way you see if you got the GM´s trust to back-up your word, else Kern will see it as just words and not as something that has a high chance of success.

Maybe you could prove yourself with getting some PtP 2.0 programming and show them where you would change stuff to for example make leveling work, so that we won´t always stay lvl 1 the whole game through.

minalia wrote:If you got so many ideas why not put those in practice in the current game.

I would love put my ideas into the game, but I realize my powerlessness in the matter. The changes I want to make require retooling of the system and the current game doesn't have a viable way of doing that. Theoretically, I suppose I could rally every active player into petitioning for a change of the system, but we all know how diverse our group is. Herding cats would be easier And even then, Kern isn't going to green light any changes that ultimately cost more money. That is why I decided to do it myself.

3Power wrote:Ignoring valid observations due to how they are stated doesn't speak well of your maturity.

I have responded and answered your observations. However, you chose to ignore valid answers. I suspect because the answer I gave and the answer you want to hear are two different things.

I brought up the way you came across to me because you were unclear in communicating your observations or just plain unhelpful. Furthermore, you were being judgmental and condescending. Acting like that does not help anyone understand your point. I brought that up previously, but you also chose to ignore that as well. If you would like, I can point out each part exactly where you come off as judgmental and condescending. Perhaps there's a miscommunication, but that was the single point you were most clear on in most of your posts.

James Rye wrote:If you don´t wanna talk already to kern, how about contacting Thalar first?

Actually, back when the vote first came up, I contacted Kern about being part of the PtP2.0 team. I was picked up and we began the process of assessing the breadth and depth of my programming skill set. However, before anything really got rolling, the vote came out to favor Option 2. Since the vote favored downgrading the game, the team that was being established was dissolved. You can ask Thalar to confirm this story if you like although I would hate to have cause her inbox to get spammed with the same question. Minalia, when you talk to Thalar next, would you mind confirming that I'm not lying?

Okay, I definitely detect some negative stigma associated with trying to create a product before getting an minimal viable product (MVP) out As the reader, I assume you are all familiar with games that are promised and don't deliver. I could be another one of "those guys" and that's why I'm being treated somewhat harshly. That's why you ask me to make an MVP first. I can relate to that.

However, as a programmer, I don't want to waste time on creating an MVP when I already acknowledge that I want many aspects to drastically change. Furthermore, there's already an MVP in existence; PtP2.0. It was released. Everyone here has tried it.

I am approaching this from a lean development standpoint, so I don't like routes that cause me to do work I know will be scrapped immediately. Do other people do it? Sure. But I think they also waste their time a lot. If any of you were an investor, things would change because I wouldn't get any funding without proving something. With this project, I don't need anyone to fund this project. I am also not under the illusion that people will jump on. As Catriana and 3Power pointed out, no one is going to jump onto a project without enough substance. I am aware of that. I only began this topic out of one of the principles of this project. Transparency

I realize this wasn't communicated well before, but I want to correct that right now. This may be my most important point that I definitely want to get across to you. I want feedback from the PtP community about PtP2.0. I would like people to tell me what they liked and didn't like about PtP2.0. I know everyone has an opinion about that subject

So why did I announce this potentially vaporware project? Because if I don't, it would be difficult to gather feedback from the players. Honestly, if I started a thread asking people for their feedback about what they liked and didn't like about PtP2.0, many wouldn't bother because it would be perceived as irrelevant. Announcing this project gives that question relevancy.

Well, i believe you. No reason to lie to us when we can confirm the truth with sending Thalar a pm or ask her over Skype.

When i readed it first i was thinking you were searching for programmer and stuff among us to help to make an own version of PtP 2.0 without having a basement to start with. I can tell you already i have no idea with such things so i wont be of any help for that project. But if PtP 2.0 is kinda like your MVP then i can give ya my honest opinion what i disliked and what i liked.

Disliked:

Clan inventory - no order in it, just a hug list to scroll down and try to find stuff. The old one at least had categories this one didn´t. I liked though that we could get for example more weapons to give our charas weapons, but getting them from the inventory to our backbag to the CS´s hands was somehow not so easy...Map - as cool as having such a Map with interactive actions was, it was also not very helpful. For example it was hard to guess whenever or not the clan has bandages to start the action Heal. You had to check the inventory and then go back to the Map. It would have been easier if the Map would tell you itself if the stuffs there or not and not afterwards when clicking on the action button *duh, no items to start the action haha*. Also i felt this Map was overwhelming Thalar. We searched through 3 ruins and several squares for ressources, but we didn´t got an update on any of those on the map. Maybe we should leave that system either out completley to the advise/action boxes or find another way for it. Same for promised NPCs, there were none.Job level - it didn´t worked cause it always resetted to lvl 1. Nuff said about that %$%%§&.

Liked:

Backbag - Cool to have an own inventory. Also cool we needed food to make actions on the map. Not cool, we had no idea how much the clan consumes. In PtP Kern would always say something like one day one player one unit and given our food income we had to look out to avoid getting hungry in case noone works on the fields. Here however food was only used up for actions on the map. The less people made actions the more food got stored no one had a real use for as it seems no one not working was also not eating anything at all. Maybe that could be changed. Still, backbag cool feature.Chara - another good one, i liked that we could have secondary charas or that we could engage and everyone could see on our CS who our mate is and our child if we decided to had one. Same goes for seeing the job and skill lvls.Skills - that worked like a charm. The more skills you learned or the higher your lvl got in them, the better you feeled. However, it was hard to see a ingame change expect for a slight increase in the % on the map actions. Where would be the real difference between a warrior lvl1 with no skills/no skill points and a warrior lvl3 with several skill/skill points when they would fight/make a fight action/advise? Same for smiths, would a lvl 1 and a lvl 2 smithcreate the same amount of swords with the same quality if each would make a Map smith sword action or post an EA action to smith some new type of sword?

No one has accused you of being a liar. In addition, if you're going to continue to quote me, please do not dismiss valid parts of the overall message. You've done that a few times, and context was lost.

Look, you need to be definitive about this. Either you are trying to do something completely different, or you're trying to bring back 2.0. You continue to go back and forth with your explanation, you are not remaining consistent.

If you are trying to bring back 2.0, then you would absolutely have to speak with Kern, because he is the one who would have to approve such a thing regardless of when you do it. Before you finish coding, or after, it has to go through to him one way or the other. Whether you do this project on your own or not, if your intention is to present Kern with a 2.0-esque system for implementation, he needs to know. That is the absolute bottom line.

If you are trying to create a new fantasy game, make that clear. One or the other, please decide what your aim is and please stop mentioning the other so people have a clear and concise understanding of what your goals are.

Sticking with 2.0 was a money sink, that was made perfectly clear. The game was no longer making revenue, and therefore skilled programmers could not be afforded. That meant 2.0 would be stagnate for an indefinite amount of time. People had already quit, waiting for updates that were never coming. Many were bored with the current game because of this stagnation. Had we continued along that path, the game would have eventually shut down due to lack of funding, lack of interested parties, and lack of upgrades. As much as people enjoyed the potential of 2.0, the bottom line was that it was dying.

The biggest reason why people disliked the option to revert back to the older system is because many feared that regressing would also bring back all the problems and drama, that's it. The clan did well under the old system, but there were many issues with the Ranked, and a lot of that was due to lack of moderation which led to certain abuses of power and general laziness. But when it worked, it worked, and a lot of us remember that. However, the Ennobling system is somewhat different from the Ranked, and we've seen Thalar moderate, so there was reassurance that things would not degenerate to the levels they were before. You claim 40% of the votes were for 2.0, but I am almost positive that if people hadn't been so afraid of downgrading bringing back the drama, that 40% would have been much lower.

So whatever tons of missing information you're claiming there was, I'd certainly like to read it. The only missing information I can think of actually wasn't about keeping 2.0, but about the Noble System. Details on that didn't come until after we voted, so your argument of voters not making a well informed decision doesn't help your argument.

I'd really go into more on this, but I'm pretty much at the point where I've made my decision and I think I've text vomited enough for one early morning. Without Kern's blessing, I cannot even fathom supporting someone working on 2.0 on the side and to be honest, Minalia is right: Your efforts would be better utilized toward the upcoming system, which will have coding and what have you. Maybe you should focus your efforts on improvements for that.

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend." -Henry David Thoreau

Thank you for your feedback James. It is very appreciated Not everyone can help program or draw, but I do hope everyone can share their experience with me as you have.

3Power wrote:The sum of our conversation was "you have nothing to show that demonstrates this project is possible"To which your response was "lol I don't need to show nothing." That is not a valid answer, it is avoiding the question.I'll say it again, come back when you have something to show.

3Power, for someone who remarked on my maturity, please keep yourself in check. If you can't participate in a discussion without using a blatant strawman argument, please don't participate at all.

Catriana, the reason I haven't quoted entire replies is because I thought that would take up too much space. It takes me 3-4 sentences to respond to a single point, so I wanted to avoid an exponential text explosion. I apologize if you felt that takes your point out of context, but I thought that we'd all know the context because this is in the same thread. If I quoted someone outside of this thread, then I would include the entire post. The line or two quotes is to give a reference point. I still felt I addressed your concerns in its original context, but apparently there's something not connecting between us two. I'm trying to figure out what.

Although no one has accused me of being a liar, they have accused me of trying to develop vaporware. Vaporware is where a party makes a promise of making something and unofficially even inform the same audience that they dropped the project. That's pretty close to being called a liar. There have also been implications that I'm manipulative or full of poo poo. I wanted to cover all my bases and let people know that I am not afraid if people confirm what I'm telling them. I'm trying to be as open and honest as possible. Maybe that's something people are not familiar with out here and it gets automatically perceived as being dishonest? I don't know. What I do know is what my openness and honesty has reaped so far

Your point about you being positive that if people knew things wouldn't go back to being ranked that the numbers would be lower already supports my point that there wasn't enough information available. There's no way you can explain what's going on with a paragraph or two describing what going to happen in broad terms. I could also say that Option 2 was given the most details and information and correlate that to it winning. Even Option 3 had missing information. Yes, PtP would end, but there was no talk of replacing it with anything. Only implications that nothing would because PtP was strapped for cash. I can provide many more examples of missing information, but I hope you understand my point.

But that last point discussed is sort of irrelevant. The vote is done and over with. We both agree there was missing information that could have altered the turn out. We can speculate that it would have improved or hurt votes, but that isn't getting us anywhere.

You brought me up waffling between whether I intend to do something entirely new or if I plan to do PtP2.0. I believe I addressed this earlier. I hope quoting myself here might help

Peppilu wrote:As for the 'no premise, no structure, no plot' etc, PtP2.0 is the entire basis for this project. I'm going for what would have happened if Option 1 passed instead of Option 2. However, I keep open the possibility that certain aspects of PtP2.0 were not good. How much might have changed, I do not know. At the very minimum, fixes for the leveling bug. But if we were allowed to fix bugs, there would also be the possibility to add functionality, improve balance, and enhance gameplay. There's so much potential with this project that I am hesitant to simply make it a PtP2.0 with no bugs and say there's nothing else that could possibly be done beyond fixing a few bugs.

If it doesn't, please let me know what is not clear about that answer.

If you need something definitive from me, allow me to state that I want to create a game everyone can enjoy. If the majority of people did not like how PtP2.0 turned out, then I'm at the stage where things can be planned out to make it something enjoyable. That may involve redesigning parts or all of the game at varying degrees. There's no point creating a game nobody wants. Again, I want to create something that will be enjoyed.

Peppilu wrote:Although no one has accused me of being a liar, they have accused me of trying to develop vaporware. Vaporware is where a party makes a promise of making something and unofficially even inform the same audience that they dropped the project. That's pretty close to being called a liar. There have also been implications that I'm manipulative or full of poo poo. I wanted to cover all my bases and let people know that I am not afraid if people confirm what I'm telling them. I'm trying to be as open and honest as possible. Maybe that's something people are not familiar with out here and it gets automatically perceived as being dishonest? I don't know. What I do know is what my openness and honesty has reaped so far

Honesty is certainly appreciated, but in my opinion that is not the issue here. The issue is that this proposal lacks, shall we say, substance.

From what I've gathered, this is an ambitious project to "revive" the PtP2.0 system currently in place but the final results come across as vague. What will be the features of this game? How will it be organized? Where will it be hosted? What, exactly, will be different? What will be the same? Where is it set? When is it set? In short, what is the frame about which this project will be built around?

For all intensive purposes, you are pitching an idea to get people to invest support in it, even if that investment is merely time. And as an investor, I would want to know two things: first, I would want to know about story and setting now and not "a long ways off." I want to know what exactly it is I'm supporting after all. Second, how are you going to see this dream realized? Kern had an entire team consisting of artists, writers, a programmer (albeit an unsatisfactory one), a small army of fans, and hundreds of dollars in monthly revenue to help him try and make Path to Power 2 work and even he could not.

So then what would your method be for creating this vague original game of yours? How would you get funding? How many people do you expect to work on it? What are your proposed deadlines? Who will write? If you expect other people to help, will they be paid? If so, how will they be paid? If you expect others to help, what will be the benefits of working on this project other than "completing this project?" If you expect to work on it by yourself, do you have the skills necessary to write, program, and moderate this game?

Support for this idea will not come out of a vacuum. You must tell us why we should care and convince us it has legs to stand on. Give me your best sales pitch honey.